30 May 2012

family away from home

Hi!

Ah my heart is so full today! First of all I get on my little myldsmail account to read all of your wonderful emails and then BAM BAM BAM like 10 people got married, engaged and are preggo. Everyone better email me pictures!

This week was amazing. Yesterday Mohamed got baptized. Then Fransisco, the man from Angola I contacted on the street my first week here comes to church every week and agrees with everything the church stands for. He wants to be baptized but won’t commit to a date. We brought the zone leaders with us to an appointment and he accepted.But then on Sunday he said in sacrament meeting he wanted to wait. So we will continue to work with him. We also marked Flavio from Mozambique for baptism and he's going to fast all week to prepare for this baptism next weekend. I can barely fast one day! This man is truly a tender mercy from Heavenly Father. I love my area here in Porto, I love my companion, I love Lucia and her husband (who will get baptized one day), I love Vanessa and the cute little Brazilian couple Cassandra and Lindenburg, Silva and Irmão Carvalho. They all help us so much with the missionary work here. They are my family away from home. I swear I´m spoiled rotten here.

Today for p-day we are hanging out at our chapel playing basketball and writing letters and emails. I realized that Portugal doesn´t have Memorial Day. Today I am really missing my cousin Riky. He passed away November of 2010 and I think about him every day. I know he is in a better place now but I still catch my self wishing I could talk to him again. That's why I am so grateful for the Gospel. We can be with our families again after this life. The Lord's plan of Salvation is so clear and gives hope to each of us if we follow it and keep the Lord's commandments we can all be together for eternity.

Thank you all for writing me and not forgetting about me.I’m so proud of all of you and I miss you all each day. My missionary, little Jenn Woodward wrote this to me in her letter last week and I want to share it with you, "I feel like you start your mission and end it as a completely different person in many ways. It's like the scripture about turning yourself over to the Lord and He will take your heart away and give you a new one. That's how I feel with every person that I´ve met or taught, every ward/branch I’ve served in and every companion and city you give away a piece of your heart and you´ll never get that piece back....but in exchange you receive a new piece...it's not the same, it's different, it allows your heart to feel something it’s never felt, and it fits perfectly where the other piece was. But it's not at all the same. And this giving and receiving cycle goes on and on through out your whole mission...or life...and at the end you have a completely different heart. You experience a literal change of heart". I swear Jenn needs to write a book or something. She always has the perfect things to say. I can’t believe she ends her mission in Paris soon. This is happening to me. I'm experiencing that change of heart. When I leave Porto I will leave a part of my heart here. I'm excited for what is in store for me in the future and what the Lord has planned for me.

Thank you all for being a part of my life. I love you.

Beijinhos,

Irmã Nelson

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2 comments:

This person walks around a country much older than hers, trying to speak a language not of colonial inheritage, such as hers; but rather one that colonized one quarter of the world...and why? To spread blatant lies and deceit, not to mention insults upon people's religions, such as Judaism, Catholicism or Islamism - (and she admittedly knows nothing about them!)- her main goal is to engage in illegally performed "baptism and marriage" for dead Portuguese citizens so that they shall serve as slaves unto them in their satanical afterlife...she comes out to preach the words of a man officially convicted of treason against the U.S.A, convicted of embezzlement and whom knows what else...and on top of all, she has the nerve to complain about how we do not stand by our word, when her own accomplices take people's photos and promise to give them a copy...and never ever do! PORTUGUESE PEOPLE MUST NOT TALK TO THE LIKES OF HER OR HER ACCOMPLICES! SHE MUST GO BACK TO UNDER HER COLONIAL ROCK NOW!